5 Ways to Make Life More Meaningful

Feel excited to live each day

Many people spend their whole lives searching for happiness as their ultimate goal. They identify the fulfilment of their dreams as the sole way of becoming satisfied. They believe that once they’ve achieved their goals, life from then onwards will only be sunshine and butterflies.

This mindset of being obsessed with happiness creates a series of psychological problems. It makes us disappointed with our own feelings and refrains us from enjoying whatever other positive feelings we have.

An intensive focus on happiness from contemporary western culture, (which is located at the core of many of modern-day issues — don’t worry we will not analyse them here) constantly reminds us that we should be happy. It urges us to feel happy, and failing to do so comes with a feeling of guilt.

So what if instead of happiness, we strived for something else? Something bigger?

Pursuing meaning over happiness leads to greater life satisfaction.

“The distinction between happiness and meaningfulness has a long history in philosophy, which for thousands of years has recognized two forms of well-being — hedonia, the ancient Greek word for what behavioral scientists often call happiness, and eudaimonia, or what they call meaningfulness. The happy life is defined by seeking pleasure and enjoyment, whereas the meaningful life is bigger.” — source

Living life as imperfect beings means there will be moments of suffering, whether that’s from illness, break-ups, loss of loved ones, or even hating our jobs.

Finding meaning is seeking to create a fulfilling life that even though will inevitably involve struggles, they will be worth living as part of a greater cause.

Leading a meaningful life has many benefits, including being healthier, having more energy and vitality, increased self-confidence and feeling at ease with who we are.

Here are five ways that can make your life more meaningful:

Adopt the Mindset of Meaningfulness

To live a meaningful life you first need to move away from the notion that you’re living a meaningless life.

You can consciously find meaning in your life, in the things that are important to you.

Take a moment to think what the most important things in your own life are. What do you value the most? It may be your family, freedom, independence, fighting for justice or just your security and privacy.

Finding what’s important in your life provides you with a purpose on which you latch onto and feel the need to strive to achieve it.

You extract a sense of meaning when you believe with certainty that you have a purpose you need to fulfil.

“Things are valuable ultimately because we value them, not the other way around.” — Maarten van Doorn

Have a Purpose in Life

You can go on a journey to find yourself, ask the hard questions, find your strengths and values, and figure out how you want to live your life.

Striving towards achieving your goals prompts you to wake up feeling excited to go through your days.

Going through struggles and facing obstacles doesn’t drain your energy because you’re ultimately working towards something you believe in, something that’s meaningful enough by itself.

“The purpose of life is the purpose we put into it. … Life is not a crossword puzzle, with an answer settled in advance and a prize for the ingenious person who noses it out. The riddle of the universe has as many answers [and] the best answers are those which permit the answerer to live most fully, the worst are those which condemn him to partial or complete death.” — Thomas Huxley

Also, through your occupation, you can feel a sense of accomplishment when you know that you’re providing value to others. No matter what kind that value might be, you are making a difference.

When you go in and out of your job every day, contributing nothing, and being unable to create an outcome of your own, because it’s outside of your control, no doubt that can make you unsatisfied.

Strive to become better than you were the day before.

Improve your creativity, innovation and critical thinking.

Find something you feel excited working towards, something that will inspire you so as to create value for others that will, in return, give you a sense of purpose and meaning.

Read Books That Answer Your Deepest Questions

Books can be a torch in our journey for knowledge.

Reading books is like borrowing the minds of brilliant people, we can learn through their experiences and life lessons.

You can read books from authors who wrote about the meaning of life, or from those who tried to find it. It doesn’t necessarily need to be self-help books; it can be novels that stand the test of time, for example, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.

Don Quixote argues that our imagination greatly informs our actions, making us capable of change and making us human.

Other books like The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle (amongst many) can also be really helpful in finding meaning and purpose.

Also, by reading books on ethics you can learn how to introduce virtues into your life. Cultivating virtues is an ongoing process of understanding and living a virtuous life through a constant improvement of character.

Virtues are qualities that are considered desirable in a person, that are universally accepted to have high moral value.

“The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.” — Aristotle

You can learn from people who lived a virtuous life, people like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, or even from people that are in your close circle; anyone you consider to be a virtuous person.

Spend Time on Cultivating Meaningful Relationships

Avoid drama as much as possible. It’s pointless and unhealthy.

Remove toxic people from your life and try to spend your time socializing with people with whom you can foster deep meaningful relationships. People who value you and respect you for who you are, but also are happy to see you grow and improve while always being there to support you.

Cultivate such relationships with people that you have a connection with, and know that you can depend on each other in any circumstances. Anything else than that is a waste of your time.

Help Others

Research has shown that people who are givers lead happier lives than people who are not.

You don’t have to save lives or be a hero to help people; you can make a difference even in small ways.

Most people go about their lives caring only for themselves; be that person that can make other people’s day slightly better, any way you can. This world lacks kindness. We need to step up and make it a better place through considerate actions.

We can find meaning in making the lives of others better.

Conclusion

Making our lives more meaningful is not an easy quest. It requires you consciously seeking your purpose and deriving meaning from things that are important to you.

Find your values and virtues, learn more about yourself from books and other people, cultivate relationships with people who make you a better person, and help others as much as you can.

“We are visitors on this planet. We are here for one hundred years at the very most. During that period we must try to do something good, something useful, with our lives. If you contribute to other people’s happiness, you will find the true meaning of life.” — Dalai Lama